one set of Seiko SKZ211K hands (we’ll see what these look like shortly) and proceed as follows:

1. Remove bezel and bezel click spring

2. Remove the bezel gasket from old bezel, clean, grease and refit to the new bezel

3. Fit new bezel, taking care not to pinch the gasket

4. Remove movement, dial and hands, replace day/date wheels with white on black, fit new dial and handset, refit to case and stand back and admire:

5. Enjoy for a bit and then foolishly sell.

* the K variant of the SKX007 likely emerges from the same factory as the J variant and that factory may or may not be located in Japan. The K probably refers to different destination market rather than implying that models so designated are somehow inferior to those with the J.

Thanks! In principle, you may be able to find the hands from a watch materials house such as Cousins in the UK or Jules Borel in the USA, but in this case I sourced the hands from a supplier in Holland (www.monsterwatches.nl). The bezel came from an engineering firm in the US called Murphy Engineering.

This one used the original crystal but I am in the process of doing two more, one of which will use the same pilot bezel and one a coin-edge rotating bezel. On one of these new project watches, I am going to fit a double-domed sapphire. Depending on how that turns out, I may opt for a sapphire on the second too.

This is a great piece, thanks for sharing! Like the commenter above, it has inspired me to start a project I’ve thought about for some time. I have a question regarding the black day and date wheels. I’ve had some trouble finding them, but I’ve noticed that the 7s26C movement from a Seiko SNK809 has black wheels. Is that movement interchangeable with the one in my SKX007 (7s26-0029) that I’ll be modifying? Thanks!

The day/date wheels from all variants of the 7S26 and 7S36 should be freely interchangeable but of course you need to take care with the intended crown position when sourcing the day wheels. The SNK809 has its crown at 3.45 and so the parts from this movement should be a straight drop in for an SKX diver.

Hi MIke. Because of the different internal dimensions of the two cases, you may need to change the dial spacer before fitting the movement from the SNK809. This in turn ideally requires the removal of the date wheel which requires removal of the date dial guard which itself, on earlier versions of the 7S26, is secured by the smallest, fiddliest screw in all of human history. You can remove the dial spacer without removing the date dial guard, but at risk of damaging the date wheel. I am not sure at what point they changed the design but the 7S36 is definitely much easier in this regard.

Ok no worries, just thought I would ask. I just found your site today and I’m so impressed with your mods and restorations. Let me know if you do decide to make and sell any of your watches as I would be very much interested in buying. Keep up the great work!

Hi Martin, I’m a huge fan of this watch, your 30 min mod of the SKX007, I hope you don’t mind but I’m getting into watch modding and I’d like to try and emulate it. I can’t seem to find anybody that has the yellow hands off the SKZ211K, would you know of any place that would have them? I have found some dials that very closely resemble the MKII dial and I have the Pilot bezel on the way. Any help would be great, thanks.